Ancestor Quotes - Page 29

• Over millions of years the viruses in our genome mutate more and more so the look less and less and less recognizable as viruses and so if there was a virus that infected our pre mammal ancestors like 250 million years ago, which it probably did, we can't see it because it just looks totally random.

  Carl Zimmer

  Years, Mammals, Viruses

  Source: bigthink.com

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• There are more than 100 million African women who go topless at some point in the day, each and every day, to honor both God and our ancestors. So being in a country like America where nothing is hated more than the image of the black woman, even by black people'because her womb produces the black man and makes us black'I find it of grave importance to implement African images, and especially to produce media images that acknowledge the sexual power and fertility of black women.

  Kola Boof

  Country, Men, America

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• Those who foolishly pride themselves on their nobility mistake that which makes them noble, for it is only the virtue of their ancestors that gives them noble blood.

  Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

  Mistake, Pride, Blood

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• Life existed on Earth for nearly four billion years before anything remotely resembling a human being showed up. And even then, when we started to branch off from other apes about 10,000,000 years ago, our ancestors looked pretty different.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Years, Earth, Four

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• When I heard the truth about my name was not Cassius Clay, like I knew a black man in America named John Hawkins. Now, you know who John Hawkins was.He was a slave trader from England. But the white people of that time, if one had five slaves and his name was Jones, they would be called Jones' property. [...] Now that I'm free, now that I'm no longer a slave, then I want a name of my ancestors.

  Muhammad Ali

  Men, Names, White

  Interview with Michael Parkinson, www.mirror.co.uk. June 5, 2016.

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• Scientists believe that the invention of clothing in Africa was a key factor in allowing our ancestors to migrate into colder climates and to spread across the globe.

  Ziya Tong

  Believe, Keys, Climate

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I mean, in the history of poetry there have been a lot poetries where you have to inherit the position of poet from your ancestors and I think that if you just leave anyone to become a poet based on an aristocratic society, then a lot of people are left out who might have something to offer.

  Edward Hirsch

  Mean, Thinking, People

  "Do MFA Programs Hurt Poetry?". Big Think interview, bigthink.com.

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• Actually, scientists don't know exactly how lice jumped from gorillas to our human ancestors. They speculate that we may have eaten them or perhaps slept in their nests.

  Ziya Tong

  Lice, May, Nests

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I have a musical ancestry as much as I have a family ancestry. Honoring those ancestors gives you access to a greater source of appreciation and information than you would have if you were just going on your own ego system.

  Billy Corgan

  Appreciation, Giving, Ego

  "A Conversation with Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins". Interview with Sharon London, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• I had ancestors who were slave-holders, which is a difficult piece of family history to say the least. In a recent New York Times article on the subject of modern attitudes toward our slave-holding past, the writer noted that we all want to be from "innocent origins." I _know_ I'm not. Then again, I suspect most of us are not.

  Laura Lippman

  New York, Attitude, Past

  Interview with Jon Jordan, www.bookbrowse.com.

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• I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against.

  Ben Stein

  Beautiful, People, Tree

  Ben Stein (2010). “The Real Stars: In Today's America, Who Are the True Heroes?”, p.7, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Supposition all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes; For treason is but trusted like the fox, Who, ne'er so tame, so cherished and locked up, Will have a wild trick of his ancestors.

  William Shakespeare

  Eye, Foxes, Tricks

  1596-7 Worcester. Henry IV Part One, act 5, sc.2, l.9-11.

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• One of the best things about Heaven is that we will be able to reunite with loved ones who have already passed on. It will be the greatest family reunion we've ever known, with our loved ones, relatives and ancestors all together in one place at the same time, rejoicing. All together at last!

  David Berg

  Heaven, Together, Able

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• "We, Seth, Emperor of Azania, Chief of Chiefs of Sakuyu, Lord of Wanda and Tyrant of the Seas, Bachelor of the Arts of Oxford University, being in this the twenty-fourth year of our life, summoned by the wisdom of Almighty God and the unanimous voice of our people to the throne of our ancestors, do hereby proclaim..." Seth paused in his dictation and gazed out across the harbour where in the fresh breeze of early morning the last dhow was setting sail for the open sea. "Rats," he said; "stinking curs. They are all running away."

  Evelyn Waugh

  Running, Art, Morning

  "Black Mischief". Book by Evelyn Waugh, 1932.

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• Whether our ancestors came here on the Mayflower, on slave ships, whether they came to Ellis Island or LAX in Los Angeles, whether they came yesterday or walked this land a thousand years ago our great challenge for the 21st century is to find a way to be One America. We can meet all the other challenges if we can go forward as One America.

  William J. Clinton

  Islands, Years, Slave Ships

  Clinton, William J. (2000). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton, 1999”, p.70, Best Books on

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• Ancestors do not mean so much. The rebel who succeeds generally makes it easier for the posterity that follows him; so these descendants are usually contented and smug and soft. Rebels are made from life, not ancestors.

  Clarence Darrow

  Mean, Rebel, Succeed

  Clarence Darrow (2015). “The Story of My Life”, p.15, Lulu.com

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• That's why we sail. So our children can grow up and be proud of whom they are. We are healing our souls by reconnecting to our ancestors. As we voyage we are creating new stories within the tradition of the old stories, we are literally creating a new culture out of the old.

  Nainoa Thompson

  Travel, Children, Growing Up

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• You are human, whether your ancestors come from Europe, Asia, Africa, or wherever, shamanism once existed there. We are just attempting to go home to our spiritual roots before the state religions, the agrarian centralized religions rose up with autocratic government and said, 'This is what you're going to believe, these are the official revelations, take it from us, you can trust us, we got it.'

  Michael Harner

  Spiritual, Believe, Home

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• And let me die suddenly, to be born again in the revelation of beauty....And the revelation of beauty is the wisdom of the ancestors.

  Aime Cesaire

  Beauty, Revelations, Born Again

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• In a state of tranquility, wealth, and luxury, our descendants would forget the arts of war and the noble activity and zeal which made their ancestors invincible. Every art of corruption would be employed to loosen the bond of union which renders our resistance formidable. When the spirit of liberty which now animates our hearts and gives success to our arms is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin and render us easier victims to tyranny.

  Samuel Adams

  Art, War, Luxury

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• Entranced by the denotative power of words to define, to order, to represent the things around us, weve overlooked the songful dimension of language so obvious to our oral [storytelling] ancestors. Weve lost our ear for the music of language -- for the rhythmic, melodic layer of speech by which earthly things overhear us.

  David Abram

  Order, Ears, Speech

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• No self is of itself alone. It has a long chain of intellectual ancestors. The "I" is chained to ancestry by many factors ... This is not mere allegory, but an eternal memory.

  Erwin Schrodinger

  Memories, Self, Long

  "A Life of Erwin Schrödinger". Book by Walter Moore, 1994.

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• Blues for me is having things not go your way - life, love, job, money, ... It is not about the oppression of my ancestors, who were trying to get back at the overseers. Blues is different for my generation.

  Robert Cray

  Jobs, Love Life, Trying

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• Every living thing is, from the cosmic perspective, incredibly lucky simply to be alive. Most, 90 percent and more, of all the organisms that have ever lived have died without viable offspring, but not a single one of your ancestors, going back to the dawn of life on Earth, suffered that normal misfortune. You spring from an unbroken line of winners.

  Daniel Dennett

  Life, Spring, Perspective

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• We need freedom to roam across land owned by no one but protected by all, whose unchanging horizon is the same that bounded the world of our millennial ancestors.

  E. O. Wilson

  Land, Needs, Horizon

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